My friend the Engineer lived with us for half of last year. Lots of things and occasions in our house remind me of her now – which is lovely. When we hide the pterodactyl for example, or when the All or Nothing says “I want to see” and it sounds just like her name! When I recycle not just the tin, but the lid too, when we eat brocolli and when NTV and I have our Sunday evening meeting (she was here to help us get organised!).

Another reminder is hanging the washing up in the utility room. We have one of those wooden racks on a pulley system (- which was there when we arrived and which I love!). However, because of the Fat Ladies’ cage and because of the recycling hanging on the peg which the rope is wound round we don’t actually lower the rack. Instead we use a step to reach up to it. Well I say we use the step, if you are tall enough you can stretch up and just about do the task without using the step. The Engineer is just that bit taller than me, making it more tempting for her to go it alone without the help of the step. One day we were doing this task together and she observed that using the step was much better even if you could just about reach and stretch without it. Once up there you could reach down to the wet washing and hang it up much more efficiently and quickly than doing it all at full stretch and on tip toes. The shorter person was at an advantage in one sense – they were forced to use the step and therefore got the job done more easily.

And the point is….???

I think that often in life we are slower to go to God for help with the everyday, the small things that we can sort of ‘reach’ without him. In that sense, the small things can end up weighing us down more than the ‘unreachable’ ones.  Linking back to the last post we are also slower to consciously serve him in these small things and in that sense we risk bearing the burden of serving an idol or at least carrying it alone, outside of the perspective and joy that serving our Lord brings.

As we know life is made up of the small moments, relationships are built up or broken down by the bits and pieces of daily life. Parenting is done minute by minute not in the once in a lifetime family holiday. No wonder we are exhorted to pray without ceasing, to have an attitude of prayer and dependence on our dependable God.

Please note: This is not to be confused with being crippled by a need for ‘direction’ for every choice we make.

In my last post I posed the question of the cake. In the end The One and Only Daughter made chocolate fork cookies for me while I was in the kitchen getting supper ready. It was a nice time together and the cookies were appreciated. More to the point BIG thinking about such a small decision was transforming to the burden of the task.

At first glance it seems a hassle to use the ‘step’ of godly thinking when I could ‘reach’ a decision without it, but the difference in the weight of the burdens for the day was considerable. Am I discovering something about the light yoke that Jesus promises?